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Day 125: Matter Waves

Today we explored some of the more bizarre aspects of quantum physics. We revisited the double slit experiment but with electrons instead of light waves. I shared Feynman’s “Sum over Histories” model which helps that result make more sense. I referenced The Grand Design by Hawking and Mlodinow which has good explanations of both Feynman’s “Sum over Histories” model and probability in quantum theories. I believe the following graphic is from this book:

We then discussed the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. To provide some context to these abstract concepts, we discussed how quantum mechanical tunneling enables alpha decay and is the phenomenon that makes the scanning tunneling microscope possible. Sharing the scanning tunneling microscope was new this year and was an important authentic example for students to appreciate.